


Just Think of Happy Things (and your heart will fly on wings)

by CoaxionUnlimited



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Dreambubbles, Gen, Homestuck Secret Santa Exchange 2014, Horrorterrors - Freeform, M/M, dreamscape
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-25
Updated: 2014-12-25
Packaged: 2018-03-03 10:10:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2847248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CoaxionUnlimited/pseuds/CoaxionUnlimited
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jake is having trouble staying in the dreambubbles. Feferi helps.</p>
<p>The first time Jake goes to sleep after he enters the medium, he wakes up screaming</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just Think of Happy Things (and your heart will fly on wings)

**Author's Note:**

> Jake/Feferi if you squint. Takes place circa A6A4, at the very beginning. I probably took some liberties with the canon timeline.  
> Merry Christmas, sherlockinthetardiswithanimpala!

The first time Jake goes to sleep after he enters the medium, he wakes up screaming, after a dream of tentacles and whispering.

He wakes up Dirk, who has kindly chosen to join him in Jane’s living room, but he’d really rather not have woken anyone up in the firs tplace. Especially not by screaming. It was so, er, embarrassing.

Dirk looks like he wants to say something, but Jake waves him off.

“It’s nothing, my good chap,” Jake says, and Dirk, who’s still a little bit awkward around the lot of them, steps back, hands raised, and says awkwardly,

“If there’s anything I can do-”

“I’m fine,” Jake says, and Dirk sits back down. Jake watches him for a moment, and then leans back against his own pillows.

The problem with being fine, Jake thinks, is that he’s going to have to go back to sleep.

He lays there for a while, staring at the ceiling and trying not to sleep while also not making any more noises that would disturb Dirk, or possibly Jane or Roxy. The problem is, there’s only so much a man can do to stave off sleep without noticing it, especially after a hard day of fighting zombified constructs, and before Jake can even notice that his eyes are drooping, he’s asleep.

—

Jake is submerged in black water.

Jake is sinking fast towards a nest of tentacles below and no matter how hard he struggles against the water, he can’t manage to propel himself up. 

At least until a strong hand arm hooks itself around his shoulders, and pulls him towards the surface. He struggles a bit, and just as he’s realizing that this person is helping him, they break the surface, and he is flung unceremoniously onto a pale beach.

“What the devil-fucking dickens do you think you’re doing?” he splutters, through a mouthful of oily water.

“Rescuing you, sea-ly” a bubbly, feminine voice chirps, and Jake whips his head up.

The person who, er, rescued him, is actually a girl. A troll girl, if Dirk and Roxy’s descriptions of trolls have been accurate. Jake doesn’t see what else could explain the gray skin and the impressive gold and orange horns. Dirk and Roxy never mentioned anything about troll eye color, though, and he’s pretty sure that the white eyes aren’t natural.

She’s standing ankle deep in the water, her hands planted firmly on her hips, and her bright blue and pink and green skirt fluttering in the dream breeze. She’s kind of pretty actually, if not at all blue.

“Uh, thank you, miss . . .?”

“My name is Feferi! And you’re the Jake human, right?”

“Er, yes. That is, my name is Jake and I am a human.”

“You’ve been having trouble staying in the dreambubbles, haven’t you?”

“Er-”

“Don’t worry! I’m perfectly able to kelp you learn to dream properly. You just have to-”

And then, Jake wakes up.

—

On his second night in the medium, Jake sits in the empty wreckage of his own house and stares up at the sky. 

It had been a reasonable idea to get back and check out his own house, after all, everyone else had decided to do it. He couldn’t fault Roxy for wanting to see if any of her carapacian friends had made it out alive, or Dirk, for wanting to make sure that his robot buddy was okay.

And he definitely couldn’t blame Jane for not wanting to stay here.

But it was awfully lonely. 

He could have gone with Dirk, now that he thought about it. Dirk, who had said that he wouldn’t mind if Jake came to stay with him, and then sort of trailed off, as if he meant for Jake to say that he would.

Jake hadn’t.

Truth be told, he’d been feeling a bit overwhelmed. He loved his friends of course! He was definitely glad to meet them! But it had been a while since he’d interacted with someone outside of a computer screen, and it was just a bit exhausting. Besides, Dirk kept looking at him a little bit oddly, like, well-

Jake didn’t know what it was like. It was just that Dirk seemed to be expecting something from him, and he wasn’t quite sure what.

Jake shook his head to clear it of cobwebs and fluff, and lay down on his bed. He’d be seeing his friends tomorrow, of course. He just had to sleep tonight.

—

Jake is falling.

Again. 

This time, he’s not looking down at a nest of tentacles, but falling away from dry land, so he’s pretty sure-

Cold fingers wrap themselves around his hand, and pull him upwards.

Jake blinks once, and then notices the messy black hair and the cyan and green fabric of the skirt. And then, the troll girl drags him out of the water and onto the steps of a pink castle.

Jake stumbles after her, brushing the black dream-water out of his hair, and glancing around at the unfamiliar horizon. 

“You reely are having trouble staying in the bubbles,” the troll says, crossing her arms in front of her chest.

“Yes,” Jake agrees, “I am having a dadblastedly difficult time of it.”

“You would be having a nicer time if you had managed to stay for our whole conversation,” she says, somewhat crossly, “Oh, whale. I guess I’ll have to explain it to you again.”

“Er,” Jake says, “Before we continue with the dreaming lesson, might I have your name?”

“Oh! Glub, I forgot that you were new around here. I’m Feferi. Feferi Peixes.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” Jake says firmly, sticking his hand out for a shake.

She nods, and plops herself down on a pink step, giving his hand an odd look.

Then, she gestures to the stone beside her, and Jake, not wanting to be rude, steps over.

He tentatively settles himself down beside her, and takes a moment to admire the sunset across the oddly dark waves. Above them, the sky shimmers oddly, like the inside of a soap bubble. 

“I forgot to ask,” Jake says, after a moment of quiet, “How did you know my name? It’s probably something really darn obvious, but-”

“You’re playing the game, sea-ly. There are always some doomed versions of yourself! And they all end up here.”

“You mean, you’ve met alternate versions of me?”

“Not reely. I’ve heard that there’s a new session in progress, and that’s pretty impossible to miss!”

“Oh,” Jake says. 

“Don’t worry about it,” Feferi says, patting him cheerily on the shoulder, “Everyone knows everyone, or at least some version of everyone, around here.”

“Okay,” Jake says.

“Now,” Feferi chirps, “On to helping you with your dreaming problem. You sea, the thing about dreambubbles is that they were all glubbed by the Noble Circle, and so if you fall out of them, you shouldn’t be going far. You could even ask one of them for directions.”

“Why would I do that? Those tentacled beasts are-”

“Not nearly as scary as they look! Glub, no one ever listens to me when I say that! But, whatever. Efin if you do fall out of the bubbles, you should just be able to fly back in!”

“Uh, madame, with all possible respect, I think you are forgetting that humans cannot fly.”

She sighs, and folds her arms across her chest.

“Neither can trolls, normally. But-”

Jake blinks.

The sun, or Skaia, or whatever made the light around here, was shining right in his eyes.

And he’s, unfortunately, awake.

—

The third night, they all spend in Roxy’s house.

Jake had mentioned something about it feeling ‘very friggin lonely, pardon my language’ in his house, and Jane had agreed and then Roxy had shouted something about how they all ought to come over to her place. Dirk hadn’t looked too happy, but here they were. All in the same house.

And Jake, for the first time since he’d entered the medium, is actually looking forward to getting to sleep. 

His eyes slip closed, and-

And then he’s falling. Towards the sky this time, towards darkness masked by a thin, iridescent sheen, beyond which, if Feferi is to be believed, lay the tentacle monsters. He would be more concerned about that, were he not hoping for Feferi to return. She’s always caught him before he’s gotten into too much trouble, hasn’t she? 

He’s just on the edge of breaking out of the sky, and just about to panic when Feferi grabs him around the arm and begins pulling him back towards the ground.

“You know, waking up in the middle of a conversation is very glubbing rude,” she says, and starts dragging him downwards, towards her beach.

“I’m very sorry,” Jake says, “But I can’t seem to help it. Er,”

“Hm?”

“You are my dream guide, right?”

“I suppose you could say that. But-”

“Well, I need some advice, and I don’t know who else to ask. Er, this is going to sound quite awkward, but what do you do when a man expresses interest in you? In a romantic way?”

She blinks at him.

“Whale, do you like him?”

“Er. Well, that is, I’m not quite sure. I’m very fond of him. He’s a great, upstanding chap. I just-” Jake shook his head, and Feferi splashed her hand in the water.

“You’re just not sure.”

“Right. Can you help?”

“Whale, all I can say, is if you like him, tell him! And if you don’t like him, tell him that to.”

“Ah,” Jake says, glancing away from her, towards the sand at his feet.

“Listen,” Feferi says, patting his shoulder, “You don’t have to be in a relationship if you don’t want to.”

“I- Well, that is to say, I think I might want to.”

“Then tell him!”

“Thanks a bunch, miss. I, well, I really do feel better.”

“Good! Oh, and about the flying thing?”

“Hm?”

“Of course humans can’t fly. Trolls can’t either.”

“Then how the dickens do you expect me to just fly back into a bubble?”

“This is a dream, dumbass. And more importantly, it’s your dream. You can fly if you want to.”

“Er . . .”

Jake glances down at the beach. Well, there’s no harm in trying, is there? He shuts his eyes, and tries to think flying thoughts. Maybe he just has to think of something happy? That was what it took in the stories, right?

Jake opens his eyes.

He’s floating- a mere couple of feet above the beach, but he still! Flying!

With a shout of triumph, he turns to Feferi, ready for astonishment, but she’s gone. Maybe she’d gone back to the sea?

Ah, well. He’d look for her once he’d done a bit of flying.

—

Later, Jake would think that Fefeta looked awfully familiar.

But by then, he would be too busy with Dirk to think too much about it.


End file.
